Article,
�I Try to Take Care of It Myself.� How Rural Women Search for Health Information
Qualitative Health Research, 17 (5): 639-651 (May 2007)
Abstract
Rural living poses special challenges (and opportunities) for the
significant health information intermediary role that women enact.
The authors describe interviews with 40 women living in a rural,
medically underserved county in south-western Ontario, Canada, who
discussed their information-seeking experiences and the strategies
used to find information about a chronic health concern or an acute
medical problem. The women's stories reveal that they define health
very broadly and that their information seeking is influenced by
contextual factors, such as rural living and gender roles, that interplay
with their self-reliance, health literacy, and the availability and
willingness of others in professional and non-professional roles
to give support within relationships of care. The authors discuss
themes emerging from the interviews in connection with the apparent
mismatch between women's lived realities and the policy assumptions
supporting the development of e-health strategies for providing health
information to people living in rural and remote communities.
